Wednesday, January 6, 2016

Happy 70th Anniversary to US!



This year marks the 70th anniversary of the Stark County Historical Society!

We're celebrating in a variety of ways this year, including a brand new Facebook series called "70 Artifacts for 70 Years."  Throughout the year, we will be posting items from our collection that tell the story of Stark County.  Our Archivist Mark Holland and I have split the responsibility:  I will be posting 35 objects and he will be posting 35 archival items.  Each will be accompanied by a brief history of the piece.

Our friend Su Nimon has reworked our logo in platinum, which is the symbol of a 70th anniversary.  We have used it as a "watermark" of sorts to identify the photos in this series.

In addition to posting on Facebook, we will each be posting our selected items in our blogs.  You can visit Mark's blog here.

We're excited to share all of these wonderful artifacts with you!  Some of them will be familiar, but others will not.  We hope you enjoy learning more about the place we call home.

Here is the first post of the series:



Compass and Plat
1947.2.1 and 1946.1.1
One of the oldest artifacts in the Museum’s collection is the compassBezaleel Wells used when he laid out and recorded Canton as the first town in Stark County on November 15, 1805. He divided the town into 300 lots spread over 100 blocks, with 3 lots per block, as show in this copy of the original plat. The new settlement was located between “North Street” (now 6th Street N) and “South Street” (now 6th Street S). The rest of the streets between were numbered. The major street running through the center of town was to be called “Market Street,” and would be wider than the other streets, since most of the town’s business would be conducted there. The main east-west thoroughfare would be called Tuscarawas Street. The intersection between Tuscarawas and Market was the geographic center of town and would become known as “Public Square.” Wells named the streets running north and south after tree names: Plum (now McKinley), Poplar (now Cleveland), Cherry, and Walnut.

Monday, December 7, 2015

New opera about McKinley assassination


We're excited to announce that we're planning a bus trip to Buffalo in June to see the new opera SHOT!, based on McKinley's assassination.

The cost includes premium orchestra level tickets, dinner, and transportation.  Don't miss this unique event!

Contact Chris at 330-455-7043 to sign up.

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

New Sheila Markley Black donation

Last week Sheila Markley Black brought in another donation of gorgeous vintage clothing and accessories!  We recently featured an entire gallery of her vintage and designer clothing in the Keller Gallery.  There are so many lovely options to choose from, we can certainly showcase her collection again in the future.

Here are a few highlights from the latest batch (photos courtesy of Kathleen Wieschaus):

 










Thursday, October 29, 2015

Easy Bake Oven

Look what we just got!


It's an original-style Kenner Easy Bake Oven from 1963!

When I was a kid, I LOVED my Easy Bake Oven.  I got it for my 8th birthday in 1983.  It was the yellow one with brown, pink, and orange trim.  It was so much fun!

This one came with the original "cookbook" as well, which I have scanned for your viewing pleasure:









If you'd like to learn more about the history of the Easy Bake Oven, click here for a very thorough article from Collectors Weekly.

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Children's Corner opens tomorrow night!


Join us for a FREE opening reception for 
Children's Corner
October 16 at 6:00 PM


Here is a peek at what you'll see:










Friday, October 9, 2015

Mountain feedback

Yesterday a museum member sent Chris this link to a blog post written by Paul Werth Associates about how I handled the McKinley/Denali debacle a few weeks ago.  It is called "Unexpected Civility Is Great PR."

I wanted to share it here because I was shocked and humbled by the words that were written about me.  He said my response was "pitch perfect," and he concludes with this:

If President McKinley were here today, he might be disappointed that he lost his mountain, but he'd surely appreciate the media-savvy curator running his museum.

Thank you to Paul Werth Associates for writing this piece!  The entire experience was quite a whirlwind, filled with some of the best compliments and nastiest comments I've ever received.  I very much appreciated your viewpoint of how I handled myself and represented my president.